Identification

The board helpfully states "CUBIETRUCK".

There are two revisions of the A20. Since Feb 2014 it is RevB. The Rev state is not printed on the board and is not retrievable from the SoC. There is also no information regarding the differences of these revisions. There is evidence of different behavior and boot problems with older kernel on RevB cubietrucks.

U-Boot

Sunxi/Legacy U-Boot

Upstream/Mainline U-Boot

Linux Kernel

Sunxi/Legacy Kernel

Upstream/Mainline kernel

Use the sun7i-a20-cubietruck.dtb device-tree binary.

Tips, Tricks, Caveats

Fel mode

There is a button marked 'FEL' next to the full-size usb ports, which triggers FEL mode.

VGA

The Cubietruck is the only board to date that has a properly implemented VGA connector with DDC. Load-detection is also reliable. In future kernel versions (with sunxi-kms), VGA and the attached monitor will be detected properly and will require no intervention.

There is one issue with VGA though. Due to bad PCB placement, there is some crosstalk between Wifi and VGA in certain videomodes.

DRAM frequency

<tomee^> arokux: 432MHz. that's the speed at which my board runs with sunxi bootloader, too. but look here:http://dl.cubieboard.org/software/a20-cubietruck/common/ct-v101_sys_config.fex
<tomee^> arokux: I simply do not know why 432MHz if the hardware can do 480... they downclocked it for security purposes in the first batch?
<arokux> tomee^: sorry, I have no idea.
<tomee^> arokux: I've heard somewhere that someone complained about overheating of the prototype
<arokux> tomee^: Turl may know.
<Turl> dunno, we should ask benn

Wifi

There is an AMPAK AP6210 Wifi+BT chip on board with PCB antenna, but it is not clear what exactly is inside:

Broadcom BCM43362 + BCM20710

Broadcom BCM4330 / BCM40183 Based Chipset

Cubietech says it is BCM4329/BCM40181

If your're using the Cubietech's kernel, you can enable the module with

modprobe bcmdhd

There is a parameter op_mode, which allows you to enable AP mode, for example

modprobe bcmdhd op_mode=2

For the linux-sunxi's 3.4 kernel, you will need a special driver, instructions to integrate and compile the AMPAK AP6210 Wifi and Bluetooth driver with the sunxi-3.4 source code are avalable.

Networkmanager

The Lubuntu Desktop images has NetworkManager running. It spawns its own wpa_supplicant, which is respawned once you kill it. This wpa_supplicant will also interfere with yours, if you want to configure WLAN Adapter by yourself. I have removed NetworkManager and was able to successfully configure WiFi.

Bluetooth

This is a new or differently wired chip, status UNKNOWN, please test it!

Huang Benn said here (the cubietruck chipset AMPAK) ap6210 is a combo of wifi(bcm40181) and bt(bcm20710). the firmwares can be found here:
wifi/bluetooth driver

Here is some info on how to get the bcmdhd compiled with workarounds / ideas how to overcome problems

<tomee^> arokux: CC [M] drivers/net/wireless/bcmdhd/dhd_linux.o drivers/net/wireless/bcmdhd/dhd_linux.c: In function ‘dhd_os_prealloc’: drivers/net/wireless/bcmdhd/dhd_linux.c:5192:2: error: implicit declaration of function ‘wl_android_prealloc’ [-Werror=implicit-function-declaration]
<tomee^> arokux: I guess you should ifdef the DHD_OS_PREALLOC option for non-android builds... or I did something wrong
<tomee^> arokux: it comes from the bcmdhd driver compilation
<tomee^> arokux: when I disabled buffer preallocation for it, it went through
<tomee^> arokux: CONFIG_DHD_USE_STATIC_BUF=y broke the compilation. CONFIG_DHD_USE_STATIC_BUF=n made it work. maybe this flag should depend on android or some other build environment

Battery

Tha battery backups the power supply. It allows an uninterruptible operation. Depending on the battery capacity several hours of operation are possible.

The battery will be charged during operation. A 3.7 Volt Lithium polymer battery is needed. The JST XH 0.1"/2.5mm connector is near the ethernet port (see frontside board pictures).

For kernel 3.4:

The battery capacity in mA has to be set in the fex file.

The current voltage can be read here /sys/class/power_supply/battery/voltage_now

The current status charging/discharging can be read here /sys/class/power_supply/battery/status

SATA power

The cubietruck is prepared to power directly a 3.5" HDD with Cubietech's optional 3.5 inch HDD addon package. Unlike other sunxi boards that feature an onboard SATA-power-connector suitable for powering 2.5" disks the Cubie solution is able to feed 3.5 disks that need both 5V/12V from a single 12V power source (using a 5.5/2.1 power barrel). The Addon board contains a step-down converter supplying 5V on 2 USB type A ports (from where you can feed the board using an USB-to-4/1.7mm-cable) and provides 12V on a JST XH 0.1"/2.5mm header. An identical header on the Cubietruck routes the 12V to the SATA connector on the board's edge (see gallery below).

Both 5V and 12V power connectors towards disk also use the JST XH 2.5mm header. Banana Pi/Pro/M1+, Orange Pi, Orange Pi Mini and pcDuino3 Nano use all the same JST header to provide 5V to a SATA disk. But only the pcDuino uses the same polarity, on Bananas/Oranges 5V/GND are inversed! So you could use Cubietech's 3.5 inch HDD addon package with pcDuino3 Nano or use the 2.5" SATA-power kits available for the pcDuino with Cubieboards without modifications. But due to different polarity the different Pis are incompatible and would require cable modifications.

Cubietech Kernel source

There are kernels developed by Cubietech, they are supposed to have all features working.